• Collector’s booklet featuring writing on the film by Lee
Gambin, illustrated with original artwork and stills

• PAL DVD Copy Included

Bitrate:

Description:
Legends abound of ‘The Hellgate Hitchhiker’. So the
story goes, a beautiful young woman was once brutally
defiled and murdered by a biker gang. Now, returned from the
dead, she wanders the roadside luring unsuspecting motorists
to their doom...

Refusing to heed the warnings of locals, a group of college
friends set out on a cross-country road trip looking for fun
and frolics. But they get much more than they bargained for
when they wind up in the abandoned mining town of Hellgate
and hemmed in by hordes of the undead!

Providing gore and gags in equal measure, Hellgate recalls
the good old days of early 90s fright flicks and challenges
other gleefully twisted flicks such as RE-ANIMATOR and RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD for
sheer grisly delirium!

The Film:

While waiting for a friend to arrive, three university students amuse
themselves by telling ghost stories. Bobby tells the story of how back
in the 1950s The Strangers motorcycle gang abducted Josie Carlyle
and returned with her to Hellgate, a Western recreation town
built by her father. Josie was killed as her father attempted to defend
against the bikers. The father became embittered and misanthropic but
then he found a crystal that was able to bring Josie back to life. In
the present, one of the students is attacked by the father. The others
disbelieve it so they travel to Hellgate to find the truth, where
they are hunted by the father. Meanwhile, one of the guys falls in love
with the undead Josie.

South Africa impersonates California here in what is one of the more
surreal and nonsensical films I’ve seen in the last few weeks. I think
Hellgate might have been intended to be a comedy. I’ll just leave it at
“intended.” Anyway, the late Mr. Horshack (RIP) stars here as the forty
year old college student who is late to meet his girlfriend and another
couple at a vacation cabin somewhere near Truckee. As the others wait
for him by the fireplace they tell ghost stories. It happens that the
area where they are staying has a real doozy: a girl was kidnapped by a
gang of bikers a few years back, and was accidentally killed in the
chase. But it was okay, because her father found a crystal that shoots
lasers that bring the dead back to life. Also, he already owned a ghost
town attraction, so he filled it with laser crystal zombies. While this
story is being told at the cabin, the wandering Horshack meets the dead
girl on the road and she takes him back to the town so her father can
kill him, because that’s what they’re into these days.

Image : NOTE:The below
Blu-ray
captures were taken directly from the
Blu-ray
disc.

Hellgategets a
top-shelf transfer to
Blu-ray
from Arrow in the UK. The 1 1/2 hour film sneaks into dual-layered
territory and has a max'ed out bitrate. There are some
speckles but no real damage. It can be a shade inconsistent
at times but I would suspect this is purely a factor of the
available source. Colors
are truer than SD could relate and there is no noise in the
darker sequences. The 1080P supports solid contrast and some minor depth in the 1.78:1 frame. Arnold
C. Horshack shows detail in his few close-ups and skinny
Abigail Wolcott looks either smok'in or scary in
1080P. This
Blu-ray
provides Hellgate with a rendering beyond its
cinematic value... to say the least.

CLICK EACH BLU-RAY
CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION

Audio :

The audio is transferred in a linear PCM 2.0 channels track at 1536
kbps. Dialogue has the limitations of the low-budget production. Sound
effects are minimal without much bass impact. Some screams test the
higher end and the film's music by Barry Fasman and Dana Walden seems
forgettable but punctuating at supported sequences.
There are no optional subtitles and my Oppo
has identified
it as being a region 'B'-locked.

Extras :

Arrow remain
very solid with the supplements. 'Road to Perdition, B-Movie Style'
is a 46-minute interview with director William A. Levey. 'Alien
Invasion, Blaxploitation and Ghost-Busting Mayhem' gives us
13-minutes with filmmaker and fan Howard S. Berger discussing
Hellgate. 'Video Nasty' has Kenneth Hall on the
direct-to-video horror boom - running 8.5 minutes. The package has a
reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by
Graham Humphreys, a collector’s booklet featuring writing on the film by
Lee Gambin, illustrated with original artwork and stills and there is a
PAL DVD of the feature included.

BOTTOM LINE: Certgainly, Hellgate is one of the THE worst horror
efforts from the 80s and 90s. Almost bordering on the
weakest of all time. After a decent concept (vengeful,
seducing, Zombie, hitchhiker) - it all goes to Hell
(no pun) with ineffective dialogue/scripting, weak effects,
reliance on T+A to replace some semblance of cohesiveness
etc. The Arrow
Blu-ray provides a far better a/v transfer than the film deserves. Ditto
for the supplements. I know there are those that thrive on
this, generally regarded as, trash cinema - and this small
group, the connoisseurs of schlock, we would be the ones I
recommend the
Blu-ray to. Most should pass.

Gary Tooze

February 8th, 2014

About the Reviewer:
Hello, fellow Beavers! I have been interested in film
since I viewed a Chaplin festival on PBS when I was
around 9 years old. I credit DVD with expanding my
horizons to fill an almost ravenous desire to seek out
new film experiences. I currently own approximately 9500
DVDs and have reviewed over 5000 myself. I appreciate my
discussion Listserv for furthering my film
education and inspiring me to continue running DVDBeaver.
Plus a healthy thanks to those who donate and use our
Amazon links.

Although I never wanted to become one of those guys who
focused 'too much' on image and sound quality - I
find HD is swiftly pushing me in that direction.